Outside the System
by Makishima Shogo
Summary: A new crime spree rocks the city, and the Sybil System is yet again unable to judge the criminal responsible. Inspector Akane Tsunomori must work with a new enforcer, and her old partner to discover the identity of this new asymptomatic criminal.
1. Chapter 1

Outside the System

By: Makishima Shogo

Cold rain fell in sheets from the dark night sky. Thunder rumbled through the black, ominous clouds, though no lightning could be seen. Most people were indoors, avoiding the inconvenient thunderstorm. Any normal person would most assuredly make such a decision. The lone figure trudging through the downpour, however, was far from normal.

No matter what the weather was like, she had business to attend to. The dark thoughts that filled her mind would normally be a problem. Street scanners still operated, and would pick up her hue, that is, her current psychological state. If one's hue registered as dark, or cloudy, they would immediately be arrested and taken in for emergency therapy.

The woman had no fear of the scanners, or even a run in with the police. So long as she wasn't caught in the midst of committing a crime, they had no chance of catching her. She had the ability to control her hue simply by force of will. She could be pulling a man's heart out with her bare hands, and her Psycho Pass would read normal.

She had big plans for this city. She had heard rumors of another like her, who had been killed by a rogue enforcer two years earlier. She had analyzed every news report and crime that had occurred during that time, and she was able to ferret out which ones he had been involved in.

She would learn from his mistakes. It was obvious to her that he had treated what he was doing like a game, or an interesting diversion. She would not be so cavalier about a life or death situation. The thought of death didn't strike fear into her heart, but she would not willingly hasten her own demise. Not yet, not while she had work to do.

The woman continued on through the rain, hair soaked and clothes sticking to her skin. Her target wasn't far off now. Turning a corner, she stopped in front of a large building. It was a low security treatment facility. She used a hologram to quickly change her hair color a disguise her age.

Walking inside, she strode up to the front desk. A small, curvaceous blonde woman sat at the receiving counter.

"Good evening, my name is Saki Sugowara. I'm here to visit my grandson. " the woman said, feigning an elderly voice.

"Of course ma'am. How good of you to come see him in this terrible weather. What is your grandson's name?" the blonde asked in a cheery voice./

"Oh, my grandson is Yusei. Yusei Sugowara." She replied softly.

"The blonde hummed cheerily while she typed information into her terminal. After a few moments she looked up from her screen.

"Alright hun, here is your visitor pass, your grandson's room is just down the hall there, third door on your left." The blonde said with a smile.

The woman smiled and nodded. She turned towards a locked door, and stepped up to it. A scanner above the door checked her hue, and read her crime coefficient, a number that public safety used to determine a person's likelihood to commit a crime. Her crime coefficient was a measly six, a very low number. The door unlocked, and slid open. She shambled down the hallway, making her way to the door that the receptionist had indicated.

When she arrived, another scanner read her visitor pass, and rechecked her Psycho Pass. Again, everything checked out. The door slid down into the floor, and she stepped inside. The walls were covered in a thick layer of white padding to keep it's occupant from injuring themselves. There was a single bed, on which sat the man she was looking for. She pressed a button hidden in the edge of the bracelet she was wearing. The bracelet actually contained a device that would emit a frequency that couldn't be picked up by the human ear, but would cause the listening devices in the room to malfunction. The man on the bed looked up at her.

"Who the hell are you? " he grunted.

She looked him over. He had shoulder length, wavy black hair. He had prominent cheek bones, and an athletic build. His eyes were a piercing emerald, and were obviously cybernetic implants. His skin was pale, as if the man didn't get much sun. Overall a fine specimen.

"For now, you may call me Serpent. I'm here because I find that I am in need of your expertise. I'm here to break you out." She replied, her voice smooth and melodic.

"That's quite the trick, getting past two scanners with criminal intent. Exactly what are you up to that you need an expert hacker?" he inquired with a chuckle.

"This is not the time or the place to discuss it, Mr. Sugowara. I would recommend that we escape now, and discuss business later. I have a safehouse not far from here. But we need to move before they notice that there's a problem with the security in this room. " Serpent replied.

"Fair enough. I'll follow your lead."

With a nod, he stood and walked forward. She tossed him a small circular device. He flipped it open, and pressed a few keys. His white smock and trousers were replaced by denim jeans, and a black leather jacket. A pair of brown tennis shoes appeared on his feet.

They walked out the open door and into the hall. Sugowara stayed close behind Serpent so the scanner would only see her. After the door unlocked and slid open, they stepped out into the reception hall in unison. Serpent produced a nail gun from her purse and fired three precise shots. The first nail sunk into the woman's carotid artery, the second into her left eye, and the third sunk into her temple. Blood spewed from her wounds in a macabre fountain.

The blonde collapsed without a sound. Serpent moved behind the desk, and removed the corpse from the seat.

"Get to work Sugowara. This terminal should have full system access. Get into the security system, and corrupt any video and audio files from the last twenty minutes. After that, pop all the locks. We'll let the other patients keep public safety busy while we make our escape. " Serpent instructed.

Sugowara sat down at the terminal and cracked his knuckles.

"It'll be my pleasure."


	2. Chapter 2: The Chase Begins

"Thunder crashed overhead as Inspector Akane Tsunemori sped down the rain soaked streets in her black car. Her former superior, Ginoza sat in the passenger seat holding on for dear life. Akane was driving well over the speed limit, trying to get to their destination before any more chaos ensued.  
All of the patients of a treatment facility had broken out, and the receptionist had been murdered. Akane pused the accelerator to the floor on a straightaway and then slammed on the brakes as she drifted around a corner. She had to solve this case quickly. She had flashbacks to a room full of brains, and the chief of police holding an unlocked Dominator pistol. No scanners had picked up on any criminal activity around the time of the murder, which could only mean one of two things. Either the receptionist had been murdered from a remote location, or she was looking at a criminally asymptomatic suspect. Either way, the Sybil System was going to be very interested in this case, and that wasn't something Akane wanted to deal with.

"AKANE! Slow down!" Akane was broken away from her thoughts by Ginoza yelling.

She shook off the trauma of the past, and decided to focus on the here and now. Most of the patients had been rounded up, and Sybil System bots had blocked off the crime scene. Since she wasn't going to be responsible for the round up of the escaped patients, she could focus on investigating the murder and the release of the patients.

"The treatment facility came into view, and Akane slowed her car to a stop.

"Ginoza, I want you to question any potential witnesses. I'll talk to the first responders and try to get a sense of what's going on. Meet me back at the car as soon as you're finished." Akane instructed.

"You know you're supposed to keep a closer eye on me than that. What if I go rogue?" Ginoza replied sardonically.

"You and I both know you won't, and we both know what I'd do if you did." Akane said with a too sweet smile.

"They got out of the car, and entered the facility, pushing past the bots instructing people to "keep calm and seek treatment".

"The front room was a sight to see. The desk a few paces inside the front door was covered in blood, and the charred remains of a computer terminal sat amidst the scarlet liquid. A black body bag lay on the floor, positioned so that it wasn't in the direct line of sight of the front door. Two paramedics and a beat cop stood near the body bag.

"Akane took a few steps forward and flipped out her badge.

"Inspector Akane Tsunemori, what's the situation?" She asked with authority.

The beat cop stepped forward.

"Ma'am, all but three of the patients are accounted for. We still have men out looking for the ones we haven't found, but it shouldn't take the street scanners long to pick them up regardless."

"What about the receptionist?" Akane inquired.

"Cause of death seems to be blood loss, but we'll have to wait on an autopsy to be entirely sure. Three nails embedded in her body. One in the carotid artery, one in her eye, and another one in her temple. Whoever did this is a nasty piece of work." The beat cop answered.

"Any surveillance footage of the crime?"

"None that we have been able to access ma'am. As you can see, the main terminal was torched to keep us from using it to check the footage. The security guard for the facility called out sick today, and his replacement still hasn't arrived." The cop responded.

Akane whipped out her cell and hit the speed dial.

"What have you got for me?" a sultry voice asked.

"Shion, I'm going to need you to pull security footage from the treatment facility we're investigating. The main terminal was destroyed, and nobody on the premises can log into the other terminals." Akane explained.

"Oh, is that all? Give me just a second." Shion replied. A few moments went by, and then Akane heard an annoyed sound from the other end of the line.

"I'm sending what I've got to your portable. Bad news though, there's a twenty minute time skip that covers the entirety of the crime in question. Footage starts back up as the patients start trudging out of the facility and runs up till now." Shion said.

"Got it. Thanks Shion, I'll buy you a pack of cigarettes before I come back." Akane replied with a sigh.

"You do know how to keep a woman happy." Shion said with a smile in her voice. There was click and the call disconnected.

Akane tapped her lips with her index finger. It seemed things were just as she feared. Someone had to have been here to burn the terminal, and whoever that someone was didn't set off the scanners in the facility or the street scanners outside the building. She could only think of one type of individual who could pull off something like that. She was definitely expecting a call from the Chief soon. 

"So, we've killed a receptionist, hacked into a government run facility's mainframe, destroyed public property, and released latent criminals from their cells. Not that I don't appreciate the rescue, but what the hell do you have in mind that you'd go to that much trouble for?" Sugowara asked, taking a drag off of a cigarette. Serpent smiled coldly.

"Nothing short of the absolute destruction of the Sybill System of course." She replied.


End file.
